Binalup in Menang Country has been valued for its natural resources for millennia. After first contact, the Esplanade Hotel was built at this location in 1898. This was followed by three more iterations in 1910, 1964 and 1991. The fourth and final Esplanade Hotel was demolished in 2007.

Located at a prominent location, within the Middleton Beach activity precinct on the corner of Flinders Parade and Marine Drive, the vision represents the contemporary reinstatement and continuation of hotel functions on the site.

The project has been driven by a ‘Designing with Country’ Elders first approach. We assisted our client Collab Capital, with Box Architects and Plan E landscape architects, to seek insight from families with connections to the place to inspire the design. We met on Country with Menang Elders and families, followed up by a yarn that elicited rich stories of the place. These have informed the architectural and landscaping responses to the site and the hotel design, as well as created future opportunities for public art by local artists.

Engaging with the Menang group gave the project team the opportunity to understand and experience the site through the cultural lens of those who have a cultural connection to place. Understanding the traditional uses of the land and its resources resulted in changes and improvements to the initial design concept to more sensitively acknowledge the Menang community.

The Binalup project was particularly rewarding for us, and the State Design Review Panel applauded our approach as a good example of the collaborative benefits of Traditional Owner engagement for architectural design and public art.

The contemporary hospitality venue will include food and beverage and retail offerings, and 69 hotel rooms, of one, two and three-bedrooms, across an eight storey built form. Responding to bushfire and planning matters, along with extensive engagements with the State Design Review Panel have also shaped this project. We thank the City of Albany for its support of the project from its inception through to approval.

Element Advisory Project Team: Dan Lees, Dylan Wray, Carmel Given and Tegan Patrucco